Talking to my players

[Talakeal]

Of course they do, because your gametable has an adversarial culture, where players and GMs constantly disrespect each other. You just said it yourself : the players are "smart enough" to know the GM "thinks their plan is idiotic". In that situation, the GM is not asking the question on good faith. And if you think they're idiots and patronize them, they'll pick it up and react badly.
For a "let's clarify the situation" discussion to work, you have to actually mean it, and not simply try to take back control of the situation. The questions are not used to guide them back toward your prefered solution, it's to help them realise their own within the parameters of your game.

Woah woah woah. You said:

The problem with telling a player bluntly that their plan was idiotic, is that you are saying that the character AND THE PLAYER are stupid. Some will be good sports about it, but most will take it as an insult, and it will poison the game.

And I was just running with it.

I was reading your scenario as:

A: The GM spots a flaw in the plan.
B: The GM doesn't want to tell the player directly, because then the player will feel like being called an idiot.
C: The GM instead asks clarifying questions without bluntly telling them their plan is flawed.

And I was saying at my table:

D: The player sees where that the DM saw a flaw in their plan and it trying to be diplomatic about it, and therefore assumed the DM is calling them an idiot and gets mad.

For the record, I don't think any of my players are idiots. They are extremely forgetful, overly sensitive, and they get into the power fantasy aspect of the game which makes them very overconfident and reckless. But I do not think they are idiots.

I'd even say that asking those questions is basic courtesy : If I say "I hide behind a tree and let the patrol pass!", and the GM replies "OK, you stand still, until the patrols stops in front of you and look at you bemused : There was no tree, so you were just standing still behind a potted flower on the side of the road", then, unless we're playing a comedy game like Toon or Paranoia, that GM just made fun of me and disrespected me as a player, and I won't like it.
If he clarified the situation, by saying "you're in the middle of fields, so there's no tree in sight, but you see waist-high barley fields, and a low wall on either side of the road. Do you want to use either of those to hide?", then he's helping me achieve what I wanted to do, and not telling me my plan is idiotic.

That's not the issue in my games.

I mean, sometimes they get mad and accuse me of ret-conning the trees out of existence just to screw them over, but that's a different issue.


What usually happens is the players just forget something; like they are struggling with fighting a dragon when they have a dragon-bane arrow in their pack. If the DM does ask why they aren't using it, they will either A: Admit they forgot and get mad at the GM for "calling them an idiot" or B: Say they knew about the arrow and chose to save it, and get mad at the DM for trying to railroad them. On the other hand, if the DM doesn't say anything, they will get mad at the DM for not reminding them.

To use some real examples from my games:

1: I was playing 3.5 and we were planning on fighting a dragon. I was planning on casting Hold Monster on the dragon, was told that dragons were immune to paralysis in 3.X. But, when the fight started, I forgot all about that and cast hold monster on the dragon anyway, wasting a spell slot and a turn.

2: When fighting the avatar of violence which the party knew split when killed, the sorcerer in the party cast a damage over time spell on it because they forgot.

3: Many years ago, the party went on an adventure with a friendly luck spirit and it gave them a token to summon it again if they ever needed to change their luck. Two sessions later they fought an NPC who had been blessed by an arch-devil to have incredible good luck. They struggled a lot with that fight and complained about the difficulty. It would have been a perfect time to use the token, but they had forgotten all about it, and not only did they not use it then, it sat in their bag for the entire rest of the campaign.

4: Also in D&D, the party were attempting to foil a plot by the Devils to take over the world. A demon offered to help them as destroying the LE devils would be in both of their interests. The demon gave the party a way to contact her, but they never did the entire campaign. The problem here is that I can't tell if its because they were paranoid, morally opposed to working with a demon, or just flat out forgot about her. All of them are possible.

[Segev]

I suppose the key point is that most of the things that "the DM sees a flaw in the plan" that people are suggesting greater communication will fix are things where it's not the players being stupid, but the players having an incorrect mental image of the scenario. Given that the only window on the scenario they have is the DM's description, and that likely given verbally, it is quite understandable that they may not "get" the same mental image the DM has.

The DM saying, "Your characters are aware that..." and describing what is, to the DM, an obvious flaw in the plan is not the DM in any way suggesting the players are stupid. Incorrect in their assumptions or mistaken in their beliefs about what is true in the setting, but not stupid.

If the players are assuming the DM is calling them "stupid" but doing so "diplomatically," it may behoove the DM to couch the points more carefully to accommodate their sensitivity to criticism. "I think we may not be picturing the scenario the same way, so let me run through the plan as I think you've outlined it and make sure you have the same mental image of the world that I and your characters would," might be a good place to start.

[Imbalance]

{Scrubbed}

[Draconi Redfir]

1: I was playing 3.5 and we were planning on fighting a dragon. I was planning on casting Hold Monster on the dragon, was told that dragons were immune to paralysis in 3.X. But, when the fight started, I forgot all about that and cast hold monster on the dragon anyway, wasting a spell slot and a turn.

2: When fighting the avatar of violence which the party knew split when killed, the sorcerer in the party cast a damage over time spell on it because they forgot.

3: Many years ago, the party went on an adventure with a friendly luck spirit and it gave them a token to summon it again if they ever needed to change their luck. Two sessions later they fought an NPC who had been blessed by an arch-devil to have incredible good luck. They struggled a lot with that fight and complained about the difficulty. It would have been a perfect time to use the token, but they had forgotten all about it, and not only did they not use it then, it sat in their bag for the entire rest of the campaign.

4: Also in D&D, the party were attempting to foil a plot by the Devils to take over the world. A demon offered to help them as destroying the LE devils would be in both of their interests. The demon gave the party a way to contact her, but they never did the entire campaign. The problem here is that I can't tell if its because they were paranoid, morally opposed to working with a demon, or just flat out forgot about her. All of them are possible.

maybe you could start or otherwise encourage a "Resources on hand" sheet / handout public to everyone at the table to look at?

something like;

- Wagon with two horses (Currently stored in Blighttown)
- Feather token (bird), commonly used for sending messages (Held by Gerald)
- Ritual to contact a Demoness (Offered to help you deal with a Devil Problem) (Known by Sigfreid)
- Token of luck (Summons a luck spirit to help give or manipulate luck for one encounter) (Held by Cid)
- Betty the Barmaid - Owes the party 1000gp for dealing with that rat problem (Silvershire)
- Scroll of mass invisibility (Held by Sigfreid)

If you have it on or near the middle of the table and establish that anyone can look at it at any time, they might be able to get into the habbit of checking on it every so often. or at the very least, one person might notice it, look it over, remember they have something they might need later, and re-enforce that memory so it's less likely to be forgotten.

[Talakeal]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Dude, what do you want from me? I already asked him if he was willing to post his side of it, but aside from chaining him to a keyboard I don't know what more I can do.

maybe you could start or otherwise encourage a "Resources on hand" sheet / handout public to everyone at the table to look at?

something like;


If you have it on or near the middle of the table and establish that anyone can look at it at any time, they might be able to get into the habbit of checking on it every so often. or at the very least, one person might notice it, look it over, remember they have something they might need later, and re-enforce that memory so it's less likely to be forgotten.

That's a really good idea; a lot easier said than done, but I'll try and see if I can make that work.

[Easy e]

Maybe have one of the players run a game instead of you.

Your group desperately need to change up the dynamics at the table.

[Talakeal]

Maybe have one of the players run a game instead of you.

Your group desperately need to change up the dynamics at the table.

We have, several times.

The players act the exact same, except the other DM doesn't know how to deal with it and the game implodes after a few sessions.

[Kardwill]

Woah woah woah. You said:



And I was just running with it.

I was reading your scenario as:

A: The GM spots a flaw in the plan.
B: The GM doesn't want to tell the player directly, because then the player will feel like being called an idiot.
C: The GM instead asks clarifying questions without bluntly telling them their plan is flawed.

And I was saying at my table:

D: The player sees where that the DM saw a flaw in their plan and it trying to be diplomatic about it, and therefore assumed the DM is calling them an idiot and gets mad.

Yeah, we had a miscommunication (those don't just happen at the gametable, apparently ^^)

My scenario was

A : The GM spots a flaw in the plan.
B : The GM thinks that the cause could be either that the players misunderstood or forgot something, or that the GM misunderstood the plan
C : The GM asks clarifying questions and gives some details to clarify what may have been missed, so that everybody works from the same "mental image".

It can look very similar to your scenario, but I think the difference is being genuine in your desire to clarify, and not use it as a way to manipulate the players. The goal is for the players to have the means to take an informed decision, and for the GM to rule according to the intent of the players, and not on a few words he misunderstood.


As for "forgetful players" : Every player I ever met (myself included) is forgetful. Every single one. That's easy to understand : The GM prepares the game, prepares everything the players will get with an idea of how they will be able to use it, has a global view of the story, who the protagonists are and where it might lead. Usually, they reflected on and created every single element, NPC, treasure and location of the game, so they're unlikely to forget their existence.
The players don't have that luxury : They can't really prepare (at best, one of the writes the notes of the previous session), have partial information, don't know what's important and what is not, usually only hear the important clues only once (when the discover them). So, quite often, that item that you took care to design for them so that they would have a tool to use later in the campaign is just "some stuff we got at the end of some game 4 month ago while we were ordering pizza"

And I agree reminding them stuff they forgot is sometimes difficult : some players will feel that the GM reminding them that they have some tool to solve the current problem robs them of the pleasure of finding it themselves. That's a source of frustration.
Usually, they won't get angry and get abusive like your mutant-alien-players, though. That's quite unusual in my gaming circle. Mostly because I stopped playing with the jerks I knew as a teen, and kept the well adjusted adults (or at least the well-meaning overgrown kids ^^) as friends.

[Draconi Redfir]

Every player I ever met (myself included) is forgetful. Every single one. That's easy to understand

can verify. one time my party had to walk serval miles in a high-altitude snow-covered mountain. We had to pass around two rings of sustenance and a few cold-resistance items between the lot of us to deal with the cold and the lack of air.

only after we get inside the building that has actual air in it, do i realize I've had a bottle of air this entire campaign.

another time i realized i was level fifteen or so, and had completely forgotten i had taken the toughness feat at level three. so i only had three bonus hp from that rather then the 15 i should have had.

[Talakeal]

So, I had a conversation with someone about this issue and she thought that my players are intentionally pulling this stuff as a form of Gamesmanship.

It can look very similar to your scenario, but I think the difference is being genuine in your desire to clarify, and not use it as a way to manipulate the players. The goal is for the players to have the means to take an informed decision, and for the GM to rule according to the intent of the players, and not on a few words he misunderstood.

Out of curiosity, what do you consider the manipulation here?

The only thing I am trying to manipulate them into is not getting upset; but its path fraught with peril as if I don't say precisely the right thing I get yelled at for railroading, calling them stupid, or sitting back and doing nothing while they get into trouble.

[zlefin]

On the forgetting stuff problem:

What do the players do if they are reminded via pertinent rolls? ie the characters get a skill roll, or a wis or int check, to remember something important/helpful to the situation. Do the players get mad if you do that? Sometimes that helps put it on the character rather than the player, which can help a bit.


Insisting on forms of pre-permission might work. ie ask at session 0: "If you forget something your character might and/or should remember, or that would be helpful in the situation, what do you want me to do: Remind you of it, Hint at it, Make a Roll to realize it, Say nothing"

[KorvinStarmast]

We have, several times.

The players act the exact same, except the other DM doesn't know how to deal with it and the game implodes after a few sessions.

Pictionary is also a fun game. Maybe try that.

[OldTrees1]

So, I had a conversation with someone about this issue and she thought that my players are intentionally pulling this stuff as a form of Gamesmanship.

Talakeal, your group is a bundle of cautionary tales. It would not surprise me if this too was involved. It is okay to stop playing RPGs with each other.

I suggest playing a cooperative game. Forbidden Desert or Pandemic are good examples.

Also, are your alternatives actually worse? What about your alternatives where you do something else with other people (does the problem follow you?).

[Kardwill]

Out of curiosity, what do you consider the manipulation here?

Asking questions not because you want to clarify the answer, but because you want the players to get to the answer you want, is kinda manipulative, in a "crafty teacher" kind of way. Usually, it's not a big deal (we sometimes do it in my group and are good sports about it), but in a group of adults with serious trust and respect issues, I can see how that would cause friction.

Also, are your alternatives actually worse? What about your alternatives where you do something else with other people (does the problem follow you?).

It looks like the problem follows Talakeal :

I guess I am just used to a different environment than you.

Playing cards or board games with my family, playing MMOs online, and playing Warhammer at the Games Workshop store all have a far higher rate of incidents than my tabletop RPG session.

Heck, I don't think I have ever won a game of Warhammer except by forfeit, as the vast majority of players quit the moment that it looks like they are likely to lose.

Which is weird, really. Bad stuff sometimes happen in group activities, sure (I've overturned a boardgame or two myself when I was a teen), but meldowns and that level of rude antisocial immaturity on a regular basis? From adults? At a public store? Without getting your ass perma-booted from said store because you're driving off the innocent customers? It's like Talakeal is some sort of trouble magnet.

In such an environment, I'd seriously choose a solitary creative outlet : Mini painting, drawing, solo TTRPGs, that kind of stuff. Social activities will only lead to grief.

[Pex]

A lesson all players should learn. When the player states he wants to do something and the DM responds "Are you sure?", the player should immediately say "No, never mind, I don't do that." and do something else.

When a player forgets something really important that happened or was learned two or especially more weeks ago real world time I'll give a reminder. If it's useful information but not crucial I'll ask for an Intelligence check, maybe with advantage depending on the Thing.

For my own jollies I'll remind them by fiat if it was a minor tidbit of trivia I didn't expect them to think was important to show off how clever I was to slip in something relevant.

[icefractal]

"Are you sure?" is sometimes too ambiguous though, IMO.

Player: "That's it, I'm going to charge the mayor and grapple him."
GM: "Are you sure?"
What the GM means: "Your character knows the mayor has an amulet of Balor Nimbus (but you don't remember because it was three months ago in real time), and charging there will leave you surrounded by his guards."
What the player thinks the GM means: "You've been pretending not to know the mayor is corrupt, is this the moment you want to blow your cover?"

And since it is the time they want to blow their cover, they say "Yes". And then the PC dies in a stupid way and the player is pissed off - and the fact that the GM can say "Well I asked if you were sure ..." is not going to make things better.

[Pex]

"Are you sure?" is sometimes too ambiguous though, IMO.

Player: "That's it, I'm going to charge the mayor and grapple him."
GM: "Are you sure?"
What the GM means: "Your character knows the mayor has an amulet of Balor Nimbus (but you don't remember because it was three months ago in real time), and charging there will leave you surrounded by his guards."
What the player thinks the GM means: "You've been pretending not to know the mayor is corrupt, is this the moment you want to blow your cover?"

And since it is the time they want to blow their cover, they say "Yes". And then the PC dies in a stupid way and the player is pissed off - and the fact that the GM can say "Well I asked if you were sure ..." is not going to make things better.

It doesn't matter what the player thinks. The DM is telling him his current thought of action will lead to his character's death or other very undesirable effect. The player can still expose the Mayor's corruption, but the DM is telling him don't charge him to attack. Do it another way. That's what the player should do. Don't charge to attack. Do something else. The player never said anything about exposing the corruption. That is not what caused the DM to respond "Are you sure?". It was the declaration of charging to attack.

[Talakeal]

"Are you sure?" is sometimes too ambiguous though, IMO.

Player: "That's it, I'm going to charge the mayor and grapple him."
GM: "Are you sure?"
What the GM means: "Your character knows the mayor has an amulet of Balor Nimbus (but you don't remember because it was three months ago in real time), and charging there will leave you surrounded by his guards."
What the player thinks the GM means: "You've been pretending not to know the mayor is corrupt, is this the moment you want to blow your cover?"

And since it is the time they want to blow their cover, they say "Yes". And then the PC dies in a stupid way and the player is pissed off - and the fact that the GM can say "Well I asked if you were sure ..." is not going to make things better.

Absolutely this.

Its even worse in my case, because the majority of things I need to ask players about are inactions.

Like, if they are not summoning the demon in the above example, I could never tell if it was because they were saving it for a rainy day that never came, morally objected to it, didn't trust her, or just forgot she existed. All were possible.

Asking questions not because you want to clarify the answer, but because you want the players to get to the answer you want, is kinda manipulative, in a "crafty teacher" kind of way. Usually, it's not a big deal (we sometimes do it in my group and are good sports about it), but in a group of adults with serious trust and respect issues, I can see how that would cause friction.

Again though, what answer is it that I want?

In this case, I am seeing something that is going to make the PC upset, and am trying to head it off.

Legitimately asking a clarifying question, like the above example of trying to hide behind a tree in an empty field, isn't really where the issue is.

Which is weird, really. Bad stuff sometimes happen in group activities, sure (I've overturned a board game or two myself when I was a teen), but meltdowns and that level of rude antisocial immaturity on a regular basis? From adults? At a public store? Without getting your ass perma-booted from said store because you're driving off the innocent customers? It's like Talakeal is some sort of trouble magnet.

Actual melt-downs typically don't happen in person, but online (and playing games with my family at holidays) they are way more likely to happen than in a TTRPG.

At the Games Workshop store it was typically more low-key; endless arguments about Line of Sight or guessing precise distances, occasionally throwing dice or models when things go bad, accusations of cheating, and forfeiting when things go bad.

You know, that may be my personal issue with a lot of games; I enjoy playing win or lose, I will always play to the last and appreciate my opponent to do the same, but a lot of people forfeit when it first looks likely (not assured, just likely) that they will lose, and get mad at me because I don't do the same (back in middle school it got so bad my friends actually told me I "killed the game for them" by playing until the last even though I had no realistic chance of winning).

Likewise in TTRPGs my players tend to want to give up and go back to town the moment things get hard, which really frustrates me as I spent a lot of time and mental energy prepping a game and set aside a whole evening to do it. That's pretty much the only thing players do that upsets me (unlike the countless things that upset them); when I came to play, I came to play.

I suggest playing a cooperative game. Forbidden Desert or Pandemic are good examples.

In my experience board games, even cooperative ones, cause more fights than RPGs, but don't have any of the things I enjoy to make them worth putting up with.

For example, I have played a lot of Eldritch Horror / Mansions of Madness with several groups not related to my TTRP group, and there is always at least one person who wants to tell everyone else what to do and gets really mad if you don't listen to them, and blames everyone else if the PCs lose.

[NichG]

Absolutely this.

Its even worse in my case, because the majority of things I need to ask players about are inactions.

Like, if they are not summoning the demon in the above example, I could never tell if it was because they were saving it for a rainy day that never came, morally objected to it, didn't trust her, or just forgot she existed. All were possible.

This seems odd, and maybe it's part of the reason why you're finding it difficult to ask for clarification without it being seen as insulting.

I can sometimes see asking about inaction, but it'd be more 'if you spend 4 months of downtime, you'll miss that event you set up 8 sessions ago, is that your intent?' and the like.

I could see 'Why don't you use your power attack? Wouldn't cloud kill solve this for you? Why not send Brian over to tank and then drop a fireball on him when there's a crowd?' as sounding intrusive depending on how you do it, and those kinds of things aren't exactly 'clarifying' questions, but are rather explicit suggestions of courses of action.

A clarifying question would be e.g. 'If you place Brian up in that tree, he's going to be cut off from support if the enemy approaches from the north, is that consistent with how you all see it?' or 'Are you throwing jeweler's rouge around this nobleman's bedroom that you've broken into to look for invisible things, or are you just trying to make a mess and send a message?'

[Amidus Drexel]

At the Games Workshop store it was typically more low-key; endless arguments about Line of Sight or guessing precise distances, occasionally throwing dice or models when things go bad, accusations of cheating, and forfeiting when things go bad.

You know, that may be my personal issue with a lot of games; I enjoy playing win or lose, I will always play to the last and appreciate my opponent to do the same, but a lot of people forfeit when it first looks likely (not assured, just likely) that they will lose, and get mad at me because I don't do the same (back in middle school it got so bad my friends actually told me I "killed the game for them" by playing until the last even though I had no realistic chance of winning).

In fairness, forfeiting when a loss is likely but not guaranteed is a pretty common thing in 1v1 competitive games - that's not something I would ever hold against an opponent. Conceding as soon as you get a little unlucky is a bit extreme, though.

I play a lot of M:tG, and the "control", "stax", and "prison" archetypes often effectively win long before they're able to actually end the game. Sometimes it's fun to play it out anyway, especially if there's plenty of time left in the match, but often it's more fun to just take the loss and move to the next game.

If time is running short in a multi-game match (or in an evening, if players have blocked off a couple hours for playing, for example, wargames), then cutting short a game where you're expecting to lose over the course of the next 20-30 minutes and having time to play more games makes sense.

In my experience board games, even cooperative ones, cause more fights than RPGs, but don't have any of the things I enjoy to make them worth putting up with.

For example, I have played a lot of Eldritch Horror / Mansions of Madness with several groups not related to my TTRP group, and there is always at least one person who wants to tell everyone else what to do and gets really mad if you don't listen to them, and blames everyone else if the PCs lose.

I tend to dislike (fully) cooperative board games for this exact reason: optimal play more or less forces one or two players to plan everything. Often the games are difficult enough that "deviating from The Plan" means the team really does lose. (This is called the Quarterbacking Problem, and there are a wide range of opinions on how relevant the problem is to any given game).

Cooperative games where players have incomplete information dodge this problem, as you can't make an effective plan if each player has hidden objectives or if the information you have to act on is up to interpretation.

[OldTrees1]

Actual melt-downs typically don't happen in person, but online (and playing games with my family at holidays) they are way more likely to happen than in a TTRPG.

At the Games Workshop store it was typically more low-key; endless arguments about Line of Sight or guessing precise distances, occasionally throwing dice or models when things go bad, accusations of cheating, and forfeiting when things go bad.

You know, that may be my personal issue with a lot of games; I enjoy playing win or lose, I will always play to the last and appreciate my opponent to do the same, but a lot of people forfeit when it first looks likely (not assured, just likely) that they will lose, and get mad at me because I don't do the same (back in middle school it got so bad my friends actually told me I "killed the game for them" by playing until the last even though I had no realistic chance of winning).

Likewise in TTRPGs my players tend to want to give up and go back to town the moment things get hard, which really frustrates me as I spent a lot of time and mental energy prepping a game and set aside a whole evening to do it. That's pretty much the only thing players do that upsets me (unlike the countless things that upset them); when I came to play, I came to play.

In my experience board games, even cooperative ones, cause more fights than RPGs, but don't have any of the things I enjoy to make them worth putting up with.

For example, I have played a lot of Eldritch Horror / Mansions of Madness with several groups not related to my TTRP group, and there is always at least one person who wants to tell everyone else what to do and gets really mad if you don't listen to them, and blames everyone else if the PCs lose.

1) Is if fair to say that, based on your experience, regardless of the game or who you are playing with, you expect fights (comparable to those at your RPG group) to happen?

-------

2) Is it fair to say that when this RPG group faces "the moment things get hard", they want to play a different game than you do? They want to go back to town and you want them to push on.

Is it fair to say (including thinking back to warhammer or highschool) that you have a tendency to face this "want to play different games" situation by trying to keep playing the game you want?

--------

I fully expect your situation is coincidentally unfortunate. However, I have trouble believing your alternatives are worse than how you depict your RPG sessions.

[Segev]

I have found that, if players seem stymied, running down a list of resources you know they have - without picking any one out, and without saying that using any of them will work - helps immensely. Preface it by saying you're not telling them what to do nor that anything you list will necessarily be a silver bullet, but that you're trying to help them make sure they know all the tools at their disposal to come up with a plan.

It's crucial that you make it clear that you're just helping the players - who aren't physically in the world seeing what their PCs see - know what their PCs know. You are NOT telling them what to do, and if they act like they think you are, remind them that you're not suggesting any course of action. Only reminding them of what their PCs know. It's up to them to come up with a way to use it. And what of it to use.

Edit to add: It helps if you don't have any particular uses in mind, either, but that's not always avoidable. But you need to be careful that you're not coming up with One True Solution that you're just baffled your players haven't come up with, and that your "not telling them what to do" isn't just making them play a guessing game to figure out the One Solution.

Again, I suggest a few sessions/quests where you give them ALL of the information about how the bad guy works. Especially if there's a "trick" to it, like "it can't be killed by violence, because it just heals and duplicates if so, but it dies of starvation like any mortal would and as long as it's just left to its own devices, that will kill it with time."

[Quertus]

I lost a larger post; the main thing I think I wanted to say was that the Wolf story, modified / added to slightly, would be a great candidate for a "debugging your GMing" chapter in an RPG book, because it has *so many* bad GMing mistakes. Yes, including, "you can't do what you want to do, because physics, but I'll do what I want to do, despite (the exact same) physics.".

You know, that may be my personal issue with a lot of games; I enjoy playing win or lose, I will always play to the last and appreciate my opponent to do the same, but a lot of people forfeit when it first looks likely (not assured, just likely) that they will lose, and get mad at me because I don't do the same (back in middle school it got so bad my friends actually told me I "killed the game for them" by playing until the last even though I had no realistic chance of winning).

Likewise in TTRPGs my players tend to want to give up and go back to town the moment things get hard, which really frustrates me as I spent a lot of time and mental energy prepping a game and set aside a whole evening to do it. That's pretty much the only thing players do that upsets me (unlike the countless things that upset them); when I came to play, I came to play.

Then why on earth isn't "you go back to town, rest up, and return" something you handle in 30 seconds game time?

I have found that, if players seem stymied, running down a list of resources you know they have - without picking any one out, and without saying that using any of them will work - helps immensely. Preface it by saying you're not telling them what to do nor that anything you list will necessarily be a silver bullet, but that you're trying to help them make sure they know all the tools at their disposal to come up with a plan.

It's crucial that you make it clear that you're just helping the players - who aren't physically in the world seeing what their PCs see - know what their PCs know. You are NOT telling them what to do, and if they act like they think you are, remind them that you're not suggesting any course of action. Only reminding them of what their PCs know. It's up to them to come up with a way to use it. And what of it to use.

Edit to add: It helps if you don't have any particular uses in mind, either, but that's not always avoidable. But you need to be careful that you're not coming up with One True Solution that you're just baffled your players haven't come up with, and that your "not telling them what to do" isn't just making them play a guessing game to figure out the One Solution.

Again, I suggest a few sessions/quests where you give them ALL of the information about how the bad guy works. Especially if there's a "trick" to it, like "it can't be killed by violence, because it just heals and duplicates if so, but it dies of starvation like any mortal would and as long as it's just left to its own devices, that will kill it with time."

Tone and inflection - I'd have someone else (or a computer program) read off the list. And anyone - not just the GM - can press the button that makes it read the list.

But I'm… very much in the "let the players make their own mistakes" camp? No, that's not quite right. Hmmm…

OK, let me try again. I've had too many terrible GMs who would *both* a) not tell players the things that their characters should know; b) would tell players things that their characters realistically wouldn't know / would correct mistakes that the PCs legitimately could have made. And generally each of those decisions *also* made for a worse game than the alternative choice. Far too many GMs like that.

All that aside, on a minor related note, I err on the side of *not* communicating in this scenario. Why, you may ask? Because I want to preserve the possibility of the *research* minigame (you know, like Talakeal's character was doing with the wolf), rather than accidentally negating someone's character concept / source of fun[1].

I'm not saying I'm right (somewhat the opposite); rather, I'm saying that there are multiple considerations, and multiple possible paradigms to use when deciding when to give what information / hints. Without any foreknowledge of playstyles, and sans any feedback from the players[2], I default to a style which allows all / does not prohibit any / does not unduly penalize any playstyle / minigame preference.

In other words, my default GM style is to try to let the players choose the game style.

[1] For those who say that they hate win buttons, remember: knowledge checks are win buttons to proper hypothesis and research and experimentation loops. They obviate the need for those entire minigames.

[2] This is one of *many* things that it's good to both a) read the room in the moment, and b) explicitly solicit feedback when it comes up, whether or not C) you've covered it in session 0.

[fuschiawarrior]

Then why on earth isn't "you go back to town, rest up, and return" something you handle in 30 seconds game time?

Because appearantly characters going back to town means that the players leave the room to play video games (emphasis mine).

Also, it was probably the only way that I wouldn't have been killed as I absolutely would find myself trying to complete the quest on my own while the rest of the party was back in town drinking their sorrows away (and the players are in the next room playing Nintendo).

This is so disrespectful even as a teen at the time they should have known better. Talakeal, you say that it's hard to find new players but is tolerating this behavior for a few decades easier? Is there some kind of sunk cost fallacy from your part going on here? I'm sorry for overstepping and feel free to ignore me but I am team new players too.

[Talakeal]

In fairness, forfeiting when a loss is likely but not guaranteed is a pretty common thing in 1v1 competitive games - that's not something I would ever hold against an opponent. Conceding as soon as you get a little unlucky is a bit extreme, though.

I play a lot of M:tG, and the "control", "stax", and "prison" archetypes often effectively win long before they're able to actually end the game. Sometimes it's fun to play it out anyway, especially if there's plenty of time left in the match, but often it's more fun to just take the loss and move to the next game.

If time is running short in a multi-game match (or in an evening, if players have blocked off a couple hours for playing, for example, wargames), then cutting short a game where you're expecting to lose over the course of the next 20-30 minutes and having time to play more games makes sense.

Well, Warhammer is a bit different than Magic in that regard. I can see this if you are trying to get in multiple games, but in Warhammer there is typically only time for a single game in an evening, and after I have spent an hour or more packing my models, driving to the store, finding an opponent, writing an army list, and setting up the board having my only game for the evening end after two or three turns because I am ahead kind of wastes my whole night.


On a related tangent, Extra Credits did a video a few years back about how ~3% of the time something crazy happens to upset a "certain defeat" scenario, and it was saying that even competitive players are trained to forfeit when things go bad in games like Magic or Starcraft, but learning to not give up and keep trying until the very end is the most effective form of training one can do, as at the top level reducing your loss rate by 3% is massive.

1) Is if fair to say that, based on your experience, regardless of the game or who you are playing with, you expect fights (comparable to those at your RPG group) to happen?

Yes. Unfortunately.

2) Is it fair to say that when this RPG group faces "the moment things get hard", they want to play a different game than you do? They want to go back to town and you want them to push on.

Is it fair to say (including thinking back to warhammer or highschool) that you have a tendency to face this "want to play different games" situation by trying to keep playing the game you want?

You are gonna have to define "different games". If you mean we arrange to play a game (D&D, Magic, Warhammer, whatever) and then someone wants to play Nintendo in the other room because they are losing, then yes, absolutely.

If you mean take the game we are playing in a different direction, not so much.

I have found that, if players seem stymied, running down a list of resources you know they have - without picking any one out, and without saying that using any of them will work - helps immensely. Preface it by saying you're not telling them what to do nor that anything you list will necessarily be a silver bullet, but that you're trying to help them make sure they know all the tools at their disposal to come up with a plan.

It's crucial that you make it clear that you're just helping the players - who aren't physically in the world seeing what their PCs see - know what their PCs know. You are NOT telling them what to do, and if they act like they think you are, remind them that you're not suggesting any course of action. Only reminding them of what their PCs know. It's up to them to come up with a way to use it. And what of it to use.

Edit to add: It helps if you don't have any particular uses in mind, either, but that's not always avoidable. But you need to be careful that you're not coming up with One True Solution that you're just baffled your players haven't come up with, and that your "not telling them what to do" isn't just making them play a guessing game to figure out the One Solution.

Again, I suggest a few sessions/quests where you give them ALL of the information about how the bad guy works. Especially if there's a "trick" to it, like "it can't be killed by violence, because it just heals and duplicates if so, but it dies of starvation like any mortal would and as long as it's just left to its own devices, that will kill it with time."

I kind of did that in my last campaign, I had a tally sheet of group resources and a list of adventure hooks and leads.

The players found this to be overbearing and annoying, as they thought I was overstepping my bounds writing down things for them and that I was railroading them by listing the same hooks they had turned down before every session as they felt they turned them down for a good reason.

Because apparently characters going back to town means that the players leave the room to play video games (emphasis mine).

This is so disrespectful even as a teen at the time they should have known better. Talakeal, you say that it's hard to find new players but is tolerating this behavior for a few decades easier? Is there some kind of sunk cost fallacy from your part going on here? I'm sorry for overstepping and feel free to ignore me but I am team new players too.

Going into the other room to play video games in not so much an issue anymore. There is only a single player in the wolf story who I still game with, and that was the DM.

Now, people being on their phones during the game is still an issue, but its my understanding that that is pretty much an issue all around these days and not just with my group, and seems to happen whether or not they are bored / losing / frustrated.

Because appearantly characters going back to town means that the players leave the room to play video games (emphasis mine).

This is so disrespectful even as a teen at the time they should have known better. Talakeal, you say that it's hard to find new players but is tolerating this behavior for a few decades easier? Is there some kind of sunk cost fallacy from your part going on here? I'm sorry for overstepping and feel free to ignore me but I am team new players too.

I lost a larger post; the main thing I think I wanted to say was that the Wolf story, modified / added to slightly, would be a great candidate for a "debugging your GMing" chapter in an RPG book, because it has *so many* bad GMing mistakes. Yes, including, "you can't do what you want to do, because physics, but I'll do what I want to do, despite (the exact same) physics."

That's a shame, because I would really love to here it.

Because as I see it, the hypocrisy is on the part of the players; they ask the DM to craft a scenario where they get to fight a monster and then be treated (and paid) like great heroes, and then get mad at the DM for crafting a scenario that gives them exactly what they asked for.

Unless the mistake is listening to players when they tell you what they want and instead deciding that you know best and will instead just feed them an easy win I don't know what the lesson is.

Then why on earth isn't "you go back to town, rest up, and return" something you handle in 30 seconds game time?

It might be, depending on the game.

But I don't think that's relevant to the current discussion, what I am discussing is the players find something challenging and thus give up on the adventure entirely. Several times in my last game they did this, and would then never return to complete the adventure because "that would be chasing good money after bad".

Again, my frustration is when I prep an entire adventure that will fill the whole session, and the players decide to abandon it completely and forever because a single obstacle either stymies their first attempt or was tougher than they imagined it should be. Or just looks too scary.

[NichG]

Well, Warhammer is a bit different than Magic in that regard. I can see this if you are trying to get in multiple games, but in Warhammer there is typically only time for a single game in an evening, and after I have spent an hour or more packing my models, driving to the store, finding an opponent, writing an army list, and setting up the board having my only game for the evening end after two or three turns because I am ahead kind of wastes my whole night.

On a related tangent, Extra Credits did a video a few years back about how ~3% of the time something crazy happens to upset a "certain defeat" scenario, and it was saying that even competitive players are trained to forfeit when things go bad in games like Magic or Starcraft, but learning to not give up and keep trying until the very end is the most effective form of training one can do, as at the top level reducing your loss rate by 3% is massive.

In comparison, in Go its considered rude not to forfeit from a position where it's clear that the only way you could win would be if the other player messes up. People can manage wins by doing crazy aggressive plays from a losing state over and over again with the hope that the other player misses something or responds incorrectly, but that's not considered to be proper etiquette for the game. If a professional player upped their win rate by doing random overplays in clearly losing games with the hope that something stuck, I doubt they'd be disqualified, but it'd probably hurt their career in terms of reputation. If a player sees that sort of thing going on, a sort of rude response is to play a clearly worthless move as if to say 'just resign already, I don't even need to keep playing in order to win this game'.

[Amidus Drexel]

Well, Warhammer is a bit different than Magic in that regard. I can see this if you are trying to get in multiple games, but in Warhammer there is typically only time for a single game in an evening, and after I have spent an hour or more packing my models, driving to the store, finding an opponent, writing an army list, and setting up the board having my only game for the evening end after two or three turns because I am ahead kind of wastes my whole night.

On a related tangent, Extra Credits did a video a few years back about how ~3% of the time something crazy happens to upset a "certain defeat" scenario, and it was saying that even competitive players are trained to forfeit when things go bad in games like Magic or Starcraft, but learning to not give up and keep trying until the very end is the most effective form of training one can do, as at the top level reducing your loss rate by 3% is massive.

(continuing the tangent)

Yeah, I don't really get that behaviour either. If you've blocked off, say, 6 hours for a game (one that would reasonably take that much time), and your opponent forfeits early at hour 3, they're just depriving themselves of fun for the rest of the evening too.

This is probably another situation where Magic differs greatly from e.g. Warhammer. I could probably write a simulation of how frequently a given deck beats a control deck from the classic "probably hopeless" situation (board is clear, control player has 4+ cards in hand, other player has nothing and is empty-handed), but I'd guess it's quite a bit lower than 3%.
More importantly, the amount of time left in a "best of 3" match is a real consideration in competitive play, so you're not just looking at "is it possible to win at all?", but instead "regardless of who eventually wins this game, will there be enough time remaining in the round afterwards for me to win two games in total - or should I concede now and start over from a better position?".

I kind of did that in my last campaign, I had a tally sheet of group resources and a list of adventure hooks and leads.

The players found this to be overbearing and annoying, as they thought I was overstepping my bounds writing down things for them and that I was railroading them by listing the same hooks they had turned down before every session as they felt they turned them down for a good reason.

This is clearly a playstyle difference between myself and your players, but I'd actually find that really helpful. As a player, I take notes somewhat haphazardly (I write down what looks important, but might gloss over the really big stuff because I assume I'll remember it) - the GM taking notes in addition to the party makes it less likely that the party misses something.

[OldTrees1]

1) Is if fair to say that, based on your experience, regardless of the game or who you are playing with, you expect fights (comparable to those at your RPG group) to happen?

Yes. Unfortunately.

That is unfortunate. I had hoped that observation was mistaken.

I know from my experience, that there are games and people I can play with where I will not see fights happen.

There might be some element in common with your experiences despite not being dependent on the game played or the other players you are playing with.

[Segev]

I kind of did that in my last campaign, I had a tally sheet of group resources and a list of adventure hooks and leads.

The players found this to be overbearing and annoying, as they thought I was overstepping my bounds writing down things for them and that I was railroading them by listing the same hooks they had turned down before every session as they felt they turned them down for a good reason.

Hooks are not resources. They would only come up in what I mentioned if they also doubled as something the PCs could reasonably know would be helpful with what they're trying to do.

I focus on this because you said they felt that repeating the hooks they'd turned down was "overbearing." I can see the complaint, and can't see how it helps with what I suggested. I don't agree with the complaint, mind; I just can see it given this group's assumption that anything you tell them is you trying to compel behavior.

What I am trying to recommend is that you list resources and things they know, not hooks.

[Quertus]

When it comes to MtG, I'm… not like your players, Talakeal - I don't quit unless it's *guaranteed* that I cannot win. And… IME, that makes me a "quitter" compared to those I've played against (I was the first in my (early) play group to tap all my land and say "done" (MtG grognards should get it)).

Other than once when I was too tired (playing 6 RPGs a week), and had to let someone else finish for me (and that was a close game, which had largely come down to me vs my doppelganger, except i had tech specifically for fighting my doppelganger, so I think I probably would have won that), or a few times when we realized we'd set things up wrong, I don't think I've ever quit a Warhammer style game before the bitter end. Even when… hero clicks, was it?… I could keep resurrecting my units, and keep feeding my opponent points (100 point game, they. probably scored about 250 points against me).

So I'm really not used to a defeatist attitude in those arenas.

In D&D, though? If the GM (or even another player) is doing something unfun, I'm perfectly happy stopping the game and working to fix the problem. I'm always up for swinging the ol' (verbal) clue-by-four.[1]

And if the party has already passed up certain plot hooks? It's bad form to badger them about things that they don't want. Picture the stalker who keeps trying to ask out the person who has no interest in them. Or Navi.

If the adventure cannot progress unless the party goes on quests that they have no interest in? Then build better (less fragile, more interesting) campaigns.

[1] not that the (verbal) clue-by-four *has* to be swung every time someone does something dumb or unfun, mind. But I'm always ready and willing.[2]

[2] just like, if asked, "are you here to game or argue", I would a) probably respond with some variant of, "well, I *was* here to game, but I'll argue if it's the only option on the table / the only way to get a good game"; plus some variant of b) "it takes two to argue - are *you* here to game, or to argue?".[3]

[3] and I'll *certainly* not accept a GM trying to bully and victim blame me, claiming that *I* am arguing with them, when they mess something up, or are otherwise harming someone's fun.